Tag Archives: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

Wednesday the 10th of January my depression cycle hit it was decided on the 17th it would be beneficial if I was put in a Mental Health Crisis House, hospital was full, there I was told to keep a journal of my thoughts and feelings. I have decided to share what I wrote just to show everyone and myself that there is some kind of hope for those who experience mental health problems, things will gradually get better the cycle won’t last forever. My depression was that bad I actually became delusional (believing things that aren’t true) but as this shows with help my thoughts and feelings slowly changed for the five nights I was in the house. I’m now out of the crisis house and looking at putting my life back on track with a few projects in the pipeline. There might be a few times where I repeat myself but that was part of my thought process though the illness.

Day 1

There’s probably a million words I could write but I don’t know how to write them.

Thoughts in my head echo like bad memories, each providing their own form of torture because they won’t shut up. The voices as well don’t seem to shut up. The voices as well don’t seem to want to stay quiet, one is screaming, one is telling me words of abuse such as, “You’re not worth it.” And, “It’s just going to get worse next time.” Then there’s Nemo, the voice who’s been there the longest. It feels like she has taken control of everything. I’ve retreated back. It doesn’t feel as if my movements, my words are my own. Maybe things are getting better as it’s coming clear that I’ve got some control. I still believe I don’t have all of it.

When people ask what’s keeping me alive, I say, “I don’t know.” Truthfully I don’t know. There is some external force that keeps working to keep me alive. I can’t die. I’m stuck on this planet. Stuck in this reality waiting to wake up to the world I was in before where I could just get on with life and everyone was happy.

I’m fed up of my mood being like this. I know I need to learn to live with this. At the moment I don’t think I’m living the voice I hear have more of a life than me, at least they are free to do what they want. They can say what they want, do what they want, whereas, I’m stuck here inflicting pain and suffering on others because they dared to care.

One psychiatrist asked me, “Why do I want to be ill?” Like I have a choice

Maybe I do.

If that world, that other universe, I belong in exists.

I don’t want to be like this! I don’t enjoy my mood going up and down being totally different people! I don’t have dissociative identity disorder but at times I think it feels like it. There’s like huge cracks between my moods where my sanity and stability fall into when my mood changes. It’s ok people telling me to distract myself, or you’ve been through this before you know the cycle will end. But they aren’t the ones who have to pull themselves up from the bottomless pit. I can’t plan far in advance, the negative voice always reminds me that the next one is always around the corner.

“What do I want to do in life?” I WANT TO LIVE. But my stability won’t let me. I could say, I can say, I want to be an artist, a writer or whatever but I can’t manage it when even my creativity is controlled by my mood.

Before this cycle I thought, I had come such a long way but now I feel like I’ve taken 101 steps back. I’m not worried about the review coming up. I’m worried about if the psychiatrist doesn’t see it from my point of view. For the sake of everyone I need the medication. I have this belief, that maybe, they just want to kill me. My mood going this low, I can really believe it. With the high I didn’t sleep although I did a lot of work but this crash is borderline deadly.

I feel like each time I go through this although it’s been getting worse, my cry for help gets weaker. I feel like curling up in a ball screaming while it feels like someone is twisting my insides and brain for me to scream louder. There was a point in this depression cycle where I couldn’t talk, people had to lip read. I had no idea where my voice had gone but in a way it made things better, I couldn’t scream like I wanted. However, it made the distress worse. I could only sit there and rock.

My mum said before I came to this crisis home that she thought she failed as a mother..I hate myself for that. It’s like my brain chemistry, is trying to destroy everything, I had this belief when I was an adolescent that I was some kind of scientific experiment. Every time I was hurt I believed that it was people collecting data and that me now is the end result. I am the result of some experiment maybe they knew that through everything they had put me through was going to result in about 2 official mental illnesses and god knows what else. If that’s the case the experiment succeeded, if it had failed maybe I’d have been killed off they might have found some way I can die.

I don’t believe I truly belong in this world. I’m waiting to be collected even rescued by someone or something from a different world. That’s why it’s hard for me to believe in this one. It’s like screaming at the world, “The humans have done their damage please HELP!”

The humans might know I don’t belong here that’s why they did all this. All of the name calling, leaving me behind and making me feel alone. I had to take the world on by myself because it felt like no one noticed me until there came a time where they needed someone to pick on.

Can I trust anyone? Not fully. I can’t trust their thoughts. I can’t risk their judgements. I can’t trust because emotions like love seem foreign to me. I get stressed when ever someone shows that kind of interest. Maybe the experiment failed in some way if they were trying to make a psychopath.

I don’t trust people but there are people I depend on probably too much. I’ve gone from someone who depend on no one to someone who clings onto people when they get to a certain stage of a relationship it might be the emotionally unstable personality disorder that made me like this.

My mood started to go up when I was about 15. It was like mentally I had to escape from all the negativity in my world the voices came around then as well. Happily I lost control, but as I experienced the depression I didn’t care about it. Death became my best friend I used to imagine the dark figure following me. Maybe that’s what keeps saving me. He doesn’t want me to die. Maybe he’s waiting for me to do something worth while with my life. Shoot me down while I’m at my highest. My current mood tells me I’m no good for anyone or anything which is a 180 turn from what it was like last month where I was the best thing on this planet.

Day 2

Things have started to become clearer. The reality I saw in the past week looks more false than yesterday. There are still things I am questioning thing that I will always question. Do I actually belong here on this Earth? Am I human? Am I just that experiment I believe I am?

I’m starting to feel less dissociated. I’m getting control back bit by bit. The voices are fading but still reminding me they’ll be back sooner or later. I’m trying to remind myself that I can make it through it like I have this time but doubt I’d always there. If I loose control go into some state of delirium again who’s to say that side of me won’t try and end everything for me? This thought of immortality, I’m wondering where it came from? I don’t class myself as, “Immortal.” Everything has to die at some point even vampires can be killed in sunlight etc. I had an obsession with vampires but the thought I can’t die was here way before that. I’d beg for death to take me when I was about 8 I think that’s where it comes from, that’s when we made friends.

I still look in the mirror and don’t recognise me. My sanity is slowly coming back. I think my body is still showing scars of what I’ve been though over the past week. There still seems to be a block in my head stopping be from thinking. I want to be able to get out of here be that happy creative person, but that cement block holds me back. Well that’s until the sledgehammer hits it too hard and then the high side begins to bleed though.

I sometimes I feel like I am fighting for nothing the voices say it would be easier if I was dead. I’m now on that border of emotion which is reminding me I’ll be missed, I hope there will be someone out there who will miss me. I go through this thought process that everyone leaves in the end. They go on and get lives if feels like I’m stuck to be this person who is ill. That’s my job title the mentally and physically ill girl. Growing up I was the girl with the weird birthmark now I’m just the girl who has a ridiculous amount of chronic illnesses.

I think I’ve always been different even before the emotionally unstable personality disorder and the bipolar showed their faces. No one understood me even when they bullied me for things such as my voice. I had to shut up and be shy to keep away from people. Maybe the problem is I don’t understand them. Why do they hurt each other? Why can’t they accept the fact we are different?

I went out today. The fire of anxiety messing up my head and insides only showed itself a few times, which is different to the arsonist I appeared to be over the past week. I think I still have some healing to do. Depression is still lingering like the monster it is. It is slowly dawning in me I might have won this battle. Unfortunately I realise it’s a life long war. In the end, even if it does win, I wouldn’t have wanted it too on a good day.

Day 3

As things become clearer, those million words which have been hard to say or write. I realise without even thinking I have said some of them. I may be on to some road of recovery but I know far from stable. I still feel tired that one small thing could send me spiralling again.

I don’t want to go back into that dark place but I have no choice. It’s a war I didn’t choose to fight but was forced into.

I’m at home for a few hours, before I go back into the crisis house and anxiety is slowly eating at me expecting something bad to happen. Making me realise I’m probably not ready to go home yet.

Day 4

Tomorrow I will leave here. Today’s aim is to make sure I’m ready for it. Looking back at the past 2 weeks it’s amazing how much this illness can take over to a point I don’t even recognise who I was. As well as the no make up or hair piece, my personality and who I was, was someone completely different. I hope that side never returns or at least never getting that bad but it feels like I don’t have a choice in that matter. Brain chemistry will do its work.

I still feel that depression monster at the back of my head, it’s slowly creeping back into his box. I’m not sure if the happy feeling is just that, I’m happy I’ve made it through this or it’s another manic phase trying to make her way through. I had a manic phase before this depression. Part of me wants to believe it won’t be her but only time will tell.

I’m choosing to stand my ground about everything. At the moment I need to recover from this, I want to recover from this. Yes it’s a life long illness but I can’t be a victim to this.

Day 5

Last day here. It’s sort of weird, when I first came in here it was like, I couldn’t find any hope. Now I am counting the minutes to leave. Watching out the window at the birds digging through the leaves. It’s a change from the me before who would just sit there in a chair only being able to focus what’s happening in or around my head. I look back amazed that I could write everything down on my first day here. I guess I have more troubles then originally thought.

I’ve also realised some of the things weren’t true. Ok, some of them I still have my suspicions but I don’t think the world needs to know. They are not eating at me saying them I’m such a way that it sends my mood further down.

Inner Child (2017)- I finished CBT (Cognitive behavioural therapy) Last week, one of the things mentioned was that emotionally, I’m still a child. I held onto the hope of someone telling me in my childhood that, “Everything is ok,” For so long, I haven’t grown up properly, hence one of the reasons I have Borderline personality disorder. This piece was to show that no matter what the make up, there is still that piece of me that is anxious when it comes to people because I’m worried about what they will say or do. I can hide behind the make up, pretend to be brave but in the end the part of me that experienced the emotional abuse growing up is still there and is sensitive to that around me.

Mercy tree (2017)

When it comes to mental health issues, time seems like an important thing. An episode of Mania, depression and/or psychosis, can last for days, weeks or even months, the ticking of the clock can get annoying waiting for the episode to pass. You can hope that the episode will go as fast as possible but the truth is, it will last as long as it wants too. Telling someone to, “Get over it,” Never works. Each cog on the tree represents a day. You need to wait, till each cog has fallen for the clocks to stop again before the sky becomes clear blue again.

If you’ve been stuck in a situation long enough, you can feel trapped in it. However, once you get out, there then comes the task of having to fix yourself. Like if you’re abused by someone, it can take time trying to get out of it but then there is the task of fixing the emotional scars.

CBT (2017) – I’m coming to the end of my CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and it’s probably the number one asked question is, “What have you learned?” Most of the time my mind is too either slow or busy to come up with a real answer. So, to make my therapist happy, I made this..